


Old Embers Build the Hottest Fires

by hellkitty



Category: Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Dirty Talk, M/M, Sticky Sex, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-23 16:39:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>charity auction fic for ravynfyre, Perceptor finds he has to fight for what he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rekindling

Perceptor hesitated in the refectory, the small tray with his ration and nutrient packs balanced in one hand, seeking an empty table. He had a datapad with him, magnetically clinging to the underside of the tray for right now, as he scanned.  It had been his mistake: normally he timed his meals for when the refectory was less busy, but the titration he’d set up wouldn’t be finished for another cycle and he’d thought it would be convenient to refuel now.

Convenient for science, perhaps. Inconvenient for Perceptor.

A flash of white, half-rising. Drift, beckoning him over to a nearly empty table, where he sat alone, his Great Sword propped against it.  Perceptor felt an awkward relief as he moved over. He and Drift hadn’t spoken beyond cursory pleasantries, since he’d joined the ship, kept apart by time and the swollen knot of bruised old hurts. He could see, as he settled, a hopeful shimmer on the other’s optics, and he wondered if, perhaps, Drift felt it as acutely as he did: two mechs standing on either side of a chasm, both wanting to bridge it, neither knowing how. 

“Thank you,” he began, stiffly, laying his datapad aside. It seemed rude to read in front of Drift, not after that blue gleam of budding hope in Drift’s gaze.

“No problem,” Drift said, his head ducking.  He was less formal than Perceptor in diction, but no less awkward, feeling his way as though on ice he expected to buckle and crack beneath him at any step. “I, uh, do you like the lab facilities here?”

Perceptor felt his spark ache at the tentative question, as though he could almost hear the question under it: ‘are you happy here?’ “They’re more than adequate.” He winced, hearing the sententious tone in his own voice, stiff and almost cold. It wasn’t how he felt: he was fighting his own battle against the past, and he could only hope that Drift could sense his struggle, as he felt his. “And you? Are you well?”

A shy smile, one that Perceptor remembered all too well, with an aching resonance, from the past, from all those quiet, tentative nights aboard the Trion, where they each, fumbling, felt out their new identities, their new selves, and this new and beautiful thing between them. “It’s a lot of work,” Drift said. “And it’s a little weird being, you know, in command again.” The smile turned rueful, sharing a joke he knew the other would understand. “I didn’t have the greatest leadership experience in the Decepticons.”

Perceptor smiled—real and genuine—less than at the ‘joke’ than at the fact that he was privileged to hear it, and understand.  “But you’re enjoying it?” 

Drift nodded. “This is real, and something beyond anything I ever could have dreamed. Back in the gutters, I couldn’t imagine what the rest of Cybertron was like…except better than what I had.  And now?” He shook his head, wonderingly. “It feels good to be part of something pure.” 

“It does,” Perceptor echoed, feeling a twinge of awe at the magnitude of Drift’s idealism.  It had always humbled him. Drift had told him he’d left the Wreckers because he couldn’t believe in their missions—they were too grey, too morally ambiguous, and all his talent at violence and all the times he’d told himself he was there because he was needed, something had finally, finally snapped. And Drift had left, because he didn’t want to break the rest of the way, fall under the dark seas of violence that always seemed to lap his wake.  

Compared to his, Perceptor's idealism was a dirty, besmirched thing.  But still, Drift's gaze skimmed over him, like some familiar, beloved landscape. 

He could only hope. He daren't do more. 

“We don’t talk anymore,” Drift blurted, abruptly, before dropping his optics back to his own tray. “I mean, like we used to. I miss that.” The blue optics flicked up, almost nervous. “A lot.”

“I’d like to,” Perceptor said, just as awkwardly, just as sincerely.

“We could, uh, meet for drinks or something?” Drift suddenly found the edge of his tray to be an object of intense contemplation.

“We could,” Perceptor agreed. “I am free in the evenings.” 

“Tonight? Or too soon?” Something like a grimace of concern: Drift, overthinking things.

“Tonight,” Perceptor said, nodding, knowing excitement was bleeding into his voice and not caring.  He owed Drift everything. What had parted them in the past seemed inconsequential now, barely worth remembering, not in the light of those blue optics and that haunting, familiar smile.  His faith wasn’t Drift’s—Drift supported intangible ideas, that seemed to glow like halogen. Perceptor’s faith was quieter and more concrete, not in the abstract but the real.  And Drift was real, and touchable, and held all that Perceptor could find worthy and valuable in the palm of one of his black-plated hands.  There was no point hiding his eagerness—it was a secret not worth holding back from its own source. 

“Tonight then,” Drift said, and his shoulders rode a little higher, his expression brightening…before falling, suddenly, like a cloud covering the sun. “Oh,” he said, blinking twice, and then moving swiftly to his feet. He gave an apologetic smile, tapping at his audio receiver. “You know. Must be something important.”

Perceptor felt, well, stolen from, if he were to be honest; what he’d hoped to be a quiet little chat, with a promise of more to come abruptly truncated.  No, he told himself. Tonight. You’ll still have tonight. “Perils of command,” he managed, the sort of joke one offered to hide one’s own petty hurt.

Drift paused, hand clutching his Great Sword, and then stooped over, placing a fast little kiss on Perceptor’s helm. “Till tonight,” he said, turning to slide through the bustling crowd, while Perceptor could only sit, warmed under the glowing ember of that kiss.


	2. Don't Go Looking for Trouble; You Will Always Find It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so yeah, about those warnings tags.....

He’d gotten a short, apologetic text that night, begging off, saying that something had come up and Drift was working late and begging for a reschedule.

The next time, the message had come a half-cycle after they were supposed to meet, when Perceptor was already half through the drink special Swerve had whipped up for the night. He’d decided to try to splurge a bit, and try one of the mech’s fancier concoctions. It had been…good, sweet and potent, until he’d gotten that message, and then it just seemed cloying, like too much of something he didn’t deserve.

The third time, no message, as Perceptor sat in his quarters. It was perhaps petty, wanting Drift to get there first and miss him, and have Drift feel that discomfort of worry. It was the act of a bruised spark, injured pride, but Perceptor couldn’t endure another lonesome stint in Swerve’s bar, ordering drinks for a partner who never came, imagining the buzz of gossip around him.

Perceptor spent a full cycle, besieged by doubt.  Why did Drift bother, if all he was going to do was cancel? Why always at the last minute? Were there that many emergencies on the ship, or did he just not know how to let Perceptor down lightly, admit that it had been a foolish impulse, spawned by nostalgia alone, that he regretted? It was possibly for the best, Perceptor thought, to keep the fond memories intact, and try not to rekindle something that clearly wasn’t strong enough.

But something niggled in the back of his mind, something that seemed to squirm uncomfortably. Because it wasn’t like Drift to be underhanded. He was forthright enough, even if he was saying unpleasant things.  If Drift honestly didn’t want to meet him, at the very least, when he cancelled, he could not ask for a raincheck. He’d asked, every time, and seemed as genuinely sorry and embarrassed by the cancellation as one could appear over text.

Conjecture was driving him mad. He could handle rejection, if that’s what it was, but he couldn’t handle this uncertainty, he couldn’t handle not knowing. 

He sat for another half-cycle, steeling himself for it. He could go check on Drift. He could surely come up with some bit of trivia from his latest lab project, something that he could pretend he needed to discuss, and wanted to do it right now, before he forgot.  He wasn’t that sort of flighty genius—he was far too methodical—but he knew no one would question that act too deeply.

Perceptor pushed himself to his feet, frowning at himself in the mirror. He would go, and he would find out. And one way or the other, it’d be settled.

He snatched up one of his work datapads, for his alibi, and even took the precaution of going down to the lab levels before coming up, so anyone seeing him wouldn’t trace him back to his room. Laying tracks for a path no one would bother backtracking, of course, but it made him feel clever, made what he was doing feel solid and real.

Drift’s office was locked. He found himself confronting the blank steel of the door, daunted, his whole alibi, all his planning, thwarted by its impassive brushed-metal face.

Well, Perceptor?  How committed are you?  He isn’t here. Isn’t that an answer? He’s not working late.  He’s avoiding you.

He felt something shrivel inside him, withering under the heat of his shame, and he turned to go, back to his quarters, to curl around his answer, when he heard a noise from inside. Nothing definite, nothing clear, but clearly something, a sign of life. 

There are moments when your mind will sell you strange things, things that seem impossible, almost insane, ludicrous, as true and good and believable. There are moments when the whole world seems to reduce to the hot point of needing to know, when the cost or consequences of that knowledge fade away, unimportant. 

He flung his alibi aside, hand covering the lock, his wild mind telling him he could say he was doing a security sweep and heard something (a security sweep—armed with a datapad), or that he could say the door had been unlocked (unlocked—with a code he had punched in), something, anything to discover the source of that noise, what Drift was doing other than keeping his promises to Perceptor.

The code itself wasn’t a problem. It felt like fate, even, that Drift still used the same security code. Perceptor could still remember the time Drift had told him the story, winking over his deep spaulder as he did, as though making fun of his own cleverness. It was Deadlock’s old security code, one Megatron himself had given him, only run backwards.  He remembered Drift’s optics sobering, as Drift said, ‘Remember it, Perceptor. If you’re ever on a Decepticon ship. Remember it.’  He’d nodded, solemnly, committing it to memory.

This…wasn’t why Drift had trusted him with the code. But he couldn’t stop himself, more than half committed, so he tapped the last of the string of digits. 

And.

Saw. 

Drift, on his knees, hands bound behind his back with a pair of inhibitor cuffs, Rodimus standing before him, his hips thrusting into Drift’s mouth, one chromium gold hand bracing the back of Drift’s helm.  The noise of the door’s opening was lost in the huff of Rodimus’s ventilation systems. And Rodimus’s voice, a guttural purr, spilling out words that rooted Perceptor’s footplates to the floor, cemented by horror and disgust like some vile epoxy.

“Come on, Drift,” Rodimus murmured, “It’s like you’re not even trying. I know you can do better than this, can’t you?”  The hand stroked forward, over the finial, almost affectionately. It seemed a gross contrast to the vile words. “I bet you sucked a lot of spike for the Decepticons, back in the gutters. Because you’re _so_ fraggin’ good at this.”

A whimper, or a whine, from Drift, the hands struggling in their bonds. It took everything Perceptor had not to storm in, tear them apart. He felt his own throat tighten, close, as though trying to fight an intrusion.

“Know what I want to see? I want to see you and Ultra Magnus. I want to see him bend you over a desk and take you so hard you can’t even sit down. Have to spend the morning briefing standing, with his transfluid still seeping down your thighs.” The talk seemed to excite Rodimus, picking up the tempo, pulling Drift’s mouth in rhythm with his thrusts.  Perceptor thought he could see the glitter of an optic in pain. Or shame.

“Hsssssshhhh, so fraggin’ hot, Drift,” Rodimus said. “Not going to last much longer. Just…have to decide. Do I want to pull out, and spray all over your hot little face, or shove it all the way in, and feel you swallow it, all of it, every last drop, like the greedy, starving little guttermech I know you still are.”  He began panting, sharp little animal grunts, timed with his thrusts. 

Perceptor felt his face burn with shame and rage, torn by anguish, rooted to the spot, as Rodimus gave a final, vicious hiss, driving Drift’s face against his spike, mouthplates hard against the mounting plate.  Perceptor saw Drift’s body buck, as though trying to gag. “No, no,” Rodimus purred. “Swallow it, Drift. You’re so hungry for it, aren’t you?”

Another soft sound, around the throat working, and Perceptor finally found his feet, horrified by the idea that Drift might look over and see him, knowing what he’d witnessed, what he’d seen. He’d wanted to break in, tear Rodimus apart, but he couldn’t. He was still, after all this time, a coward.


	3. Eyes Like Turbulent Skies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, Perceptor is displeased by what he saw.

He was still hyperventing as he hit the grav lifts to the habitation suites, feeling like his optics were burning, as though scorched by what he’d seen.  Drift…like that? It was arousing and distressing and just too much. It made his spark hurt, as though from borrowed pain.

He couldn’t leave him without knowing. For sure. There had to be a way to reach out to Drift, without revealing what he’d seen, the horror he still felt.

…Drift’s room.  It was almost a better excuse, a better story, than the one he’d cooked up to go to Drift’s office. He’d go to Drift’s room, and wait. Just to ask what had happened, why he was late, see if he was all right. His feet turned down the command cadre corridor almost without conscious thought.

The lock was the same code. Drift was endearingly predictable, at least in this. Perceptor still couldn’t process what he’d seen back there, but this, the door code the same as it always was, was a tiny linchpin of familiarity, something known and comfortable an anchor into the Drift he remembered, a sign that that Drift was still—at least in part—here.

He settled himself on the chair by the workstation. The berth would have been too much, too intimate, but this was neutral and, he hoped, safe. Safe enough, while he waited, through the cycle, long and dark, until the door coded open again.

Drift wobbled in the doorframe, resting one hand on the riser for a long moment, giving a sigh in the darkness, before stepping in, across the threshold.

He caught sight of Perceptor, seated quietly on the chair, hands loose in his lap, holding nothing, expecting nothing, merely empty and loose.  Drift tensed, as though caught out.  “Perceptor.  Oh. Tonight. Primus. I forgo--something came up.”

“It’s all right,” Perceptor said, quietly. The words, the lie, came more easily than he would have credited, the truth pushed aside by the distress Drift was trying to mask. “I just….worried.”

“I’m fine,” Drift said. “Everything’s fine.” His mouth gave that little downward tic it gave when he knew he was lying, too. Lies, between them, all well-meaning.

Perceptor rose, closing the distance between them, “Is it?” he asked, and Drift knew, by the way he ducked his head to the side, that Perceptor could smell it on him, still, the heat of interfacing, and the acrid tang of transfluid.  Drift stepped back, aware and ashamed. 

“Drift. I saw you. Earlier.”  He hated saying it, could barely make it into a sentence, but something—something—needed to break through this tissue of normalcy between them.  

The optics shuttered closed for a long moment. “I knew I’d locked the door,” he said, as though confirming something to himself.

“You did. You didn’t come, this time. You didn’t make an excuse. I got worried. I got…stupid,” Perceptor admitted. “…I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? You’re _sorry_?” Drift vents heaved in a sort of shame-driven outrage.

“I am. But. Drift.” He teetered, hating himself, but tearing the words from his vocalizer anyway. “Did, do you enjoy that?”

“It doesn’t matter.” 

“It does to me.” It should to Drift, too, with what Perceptor knew of his past. 

“It’s none of your business.” That stonewalling face, lower lip jutting out, into a childish pout.

“It isn’t,” he admitted.  “And you don’t have to answer me. But at least answer it to yourself.”

“I…,” Drift turned, striding to his berth, flinging himself down on it. “He needs it. And I can do it. I’ve done way worse before.” He stopped, as though the word ‘worse’ was an admission.

It was.

“Drift….” It hurt to see him like this, knowing he let himself be used, disrespected, shamed by Rodimus, because the other wanted it and because he wanted approval so badly. It was painfully clear to Perceptor.  From here, he could see the scratches in Drift’s paint—the silver scores in the red metal on his wrists from the restraints, the dent on one finial, small, just the width of a finger, and tell tale, almost imperceptible, spatters of transfluid, on his throat, his chestplate, one shoulder, one thigh.

So it hadn’t ended with what he’d seen.

Perceptor turned to the maintenance facility, coming back with a wet cleansing cloth.  Drift watched him, warily, withholding speech, as Perceptor bent down, and began swabbing away at the stains, saying nothing.  He could do this much—he could show that someone cared, someone respected Drift. Someone wanted him cared for, even if not himself.

“What are you doing?” Drift asked, less challenge in his voice than he’d probably intended. 

“Cleaning you,” Perceptor said, quietly. “I can at least do that much, I hope?” He looked over at Drift’s face, over the two mounds of Drift’s hands, balled into helpless fists on his chestplate.

“Perceptor…,” Drift’s mouth tugged into a frown. “It’s—it’s all right to be angry at me.”

“I don’t want to be angry at you.” He just wanted to talk.  Even if it was about…this.

“You have every right to be, though.”

The rag’s movement stopped. “I am aware I have that right, Drift. I don’t want that right. I’d rather have….” You.  Happy. He shook his head. “I want to be your friend, if nothing else. I want you to trust me.”

Drift’s voice was small. “I do trust you.” One hand moved, catching Perceptor’s upper arm. “Please. It’s just…it’s no big deal. It’s just interfacing.”  Just. As if there were such a thing. Simple, meaningless, empty. He didn't want to imagine it like that. 

“It’s no big deal…if you want it, Drift.”

“I want—“ The hand fell to one side, as if the gesture was discarded.

“You want his approval. You want him to like you, trust you.” Perceptor shook his head. “You want everything except for him to respect you.”

“He respects me!”  The voice was halfhearted, creaking under the inflection.

Perceptor sighed. “It’s not a kind of respect you deserve, Drift.”

“It is,” Drift said, his voice taking on that petulant tone Perceptor remembered so well. And it filled him with such an aching fondness that he found himself leaning over, mouth on that pouting mouth, in a gentle, reverent kiss.

“You deserve so much more than what I can give you, Drift, but not that.”

This close, he could see the fine microcracks in Drift’s optic lenses, glittering like a net of stars. And he could feel one of Drift’s hands uncoil, resting on his shoulder.  Perceptor could see Drift wanting to argue, but feeling all of his arguments disintegrate as he took them up, annihilated by truth.  Finally, he said, his voice small, “It’s not you. It’s never been that you weren’t enough.” He frowned. “I guess I didn’t want you to know because, well,....” Words failed him into a shrug.

“Shouldn’t you be, though? I mean, if you’re lovers with the ship’s captain, if it’s real and honest, shouldn’t you be happy to have everyone know? At least your old friend?” He knew he was being ruthless, hammering the weaponless mech with hard questions, and he winced at his own hardness. He could handle—in a way—being pushed aside. He’d grown accustomed to thinking of himself as not good enough, not worthy enough. And if Drift could refute him, he would subside, and do his best to be a supportive friend. But if not, well, he did consider himself Drift’s friend, if nothing more than that, and a friend sometimes had to ask these awful, brutal questions.

Drift’s face was a turbulent sea of emotion, and the hand tightened on his shoulder. He leaned down, the rag cooling and forgotten now, pulling Drift into a tight embrace, knowing that the way the white arms clung around his body, the way the helm buried Drift’s face into his neck, gave them both the answer.


	4. Inertia Meets Momentum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is, of course, a confrontation.

Perceptor regretted leaving Drift asleep, but it was necessary, he told himself. This had to be dealt with.  So he’d torn himself away from the tangle of limbs, even though it clawed at his spark, the way, in his recharge, Drift’s hands clung to his shoulders, his vocalizer emitting a soft little whimper.  He’d left a message for Drift, a small ping for when he awoke, thanking him for his openness.

And then he’d in-vented, sucking in the righteous anger he’d felt, and marched himself to Rodimus’s office.

Rodimus sat behind the desk, idly scrolling through a datapad, almost glad for the excuse of Perceptor’s entrance. “Something up?” He was entirely casual, entirely as Perceptor thought of him. It was hard to reconcile him with the mech he’d seen last night, the vile humiliating words pouring from his mouth like venom.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

Rodimus cocked his head, laying the datapad aside. “You’re talking to me.” The grin never wavered.

“About Drift.”

“Drift?” He seemed almost puzzled, trying to piece together why Perceptor might be here.

“Your relationship with him.” Perceptor approached the desk. His belly started to roil with second thoughts, doubts about not the rightness of this, but his ability to execute it.

“My relationship?” The optics tilted, studying him.  “I assure you, it’s entirely consensual.”

“Is it?” Perceptor felt his mask slip back into place. “Then why is that the first thing that would come to mind about the topic?”

“What exactly are you getting at?” Rodimus leaned forward, the smile fading off.  

“Consent,” Perceptor said. “There’s not saying no, and then there’s actually wanting it.”

“Are you trying to say you don’t think Drift really wants it?” A dubious snort. “Drift doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to, Perceptor. You should know that.”

Perceptor faltered. Because Rodimus did have a point. But no, he knew he was right. Drift wouldn’t say no to Rodimus, about anything. “I’m simply saying,” Perceptor said, carefully, “I’m simply asking, what you’d do, how you’d respond, if you knew Drift was only doing it because he wanted your approval.”

Rodimus tipped back in his chair, propping one knee on the desk’s rim. “I’d say I’ve learned, in this war, to not get involved into anyone’s motives for what they do, as long as they’re doing what I want.”

Perceptor felt something boil over in him, some stiff, foaming outrage, even though he could see the pith of what Rodimus was saying. They couldn’t have fought the war if they’d had to vet every fighter on the purity of his motives. At the same time, the war was over, and sometimes, sometimes, the motives matter.  He lunged forward, with the reflexes he’d built into himself, his hand hooking over the chromium ring of Rodimus’s collar armor, hauling him to his feet, bent over the desk.  His voice, when it came out, was a crackling hiss. “You. Do not. Go near Drift again.”

“Or else, what?” Defiance in the voice, the hands bracing on the desk.

Perceptor was no warrior, but he knew leverage and force: in a move he barely calculated, he swept one of Rodimus’s arms out from under him, dropping him hard on his belly on the desk, spun to one side.  He stepped around leaning his weight onto Rodimus’s back, his pelvic armor hard between the other’s thighs. “Or else,” he said, “I will show you, so you know, how it is to be taken with no regard to your own desire or consent.”

He twisted Rodimus’s arm up behind his back, pressing it against the splay of the spoiler wings, until Rodimus gave a grunt of pain.

“Striking a superior officer,” he managed.

Perceptor snorted. “Except I didn’t, technically, ‘strike’ you.” 

“Could bring you up on charges.”  Rodimus struggled.  Perceptor kept his weight down on him, moving one knee to push Rodimus’s leg aside, lifting his foot away from the leverage point of the floor.

“Do that,” Perceptor said, calmly. “Do that, and the whole thing will come out. Because they’d want to know why I’m here. They’d hear all of it. Do you want that? Really?”

He could feel Rodimus waver underneath him, weighing the options, knowing that Perceptor wasn’t a mech to lie. 

More to think about, Perceptor thought, overcome with his own rush of power.  “Rodimus. In the end, ask yourself, is Drift that good a lay,” the vulgarity of the words hurt him, but he pressed on, in Rodimus’s cant, “that you want Ultra Magnus to remove you from command for it?” It was what any fighter would call a ‘low blow’ and Perceptor wouldn’t deny it. But the specter of Ultra Magnus, sitting, scowlingly, through every sordid detail of what Perceptor had seen, was a powerful one.  He’d hate to think what a recitation would do to Drift, so this was a gamble, a bluff.

But one that was working.  “Fine,” Rodimus snarled. “Fine. Just…get the frag off me.”

“You won’t touch Drift again.”

“No.” The voice was sullen, muffled against the desk. “Wasn’t that good anyway.”

“Good.” Perceptor stepped back, releasing Rodimus.  He was shaking, frightened by his own audacity, how far he was willing to go for Drift.  He took refuge in what must have seemed an ironic formality. “I’m so glad this discussion was productive.”


	5. Owning Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You do not know me very well if you couldn't figure this would end in fluffy porn.

They’d met for drinks—a long delayed meetup.  And the drinks—Swerve’s alchemy, Perceptor would reckon—had proved the solvent that soaked off the last of the rust on their old relationship: in a cycle, they were shyly flirting, and no one else in Swerve’s bar seemed to exist except the other.

Drift walked him back to his quarters, in a sort of unnecessary but very much entrancing gallantry, even though his steps were a bit wobbly, his grin bleary with engex.  He was happy and that made Perceptor glow with a happiness deeper than a mere cocktail.

“I want to do this again,” Drift said, as they reached Perceptor’s door. “M-maybe a little less engex next time, though.” And the optics tilted up in a coy little glint. “And maybe a little more you.”

It was such an obvious—and terrible—line that Perceptor’s stoic mask cracked into a giddy grin. “Maybe.” He tapped the code into his lock.

“Then again,” Drift said, sidling closer, his hips swaying, just bumping Perceptor’s thighs, “Maybe I don’t want to wait.” He tipped his head up, catching Perceptor’s mouth in a kiss.

The door whisked open behind them, and they stumbled through, half drunk on desire, mouths still locked in the kiss. Drift had twisted, even drunk, to take the hardest of the fall on his own back, the floor jarring against him.

And that put Perceptor on top.

And that gave Perceptor ideas.

The kiss became suddenly more urgent, as he levered his body between Drift’s thighs, his hands groping and urgent. This wasn’t going to be a delicate, tender lovemaking—this was years of absence crashing down on top of them both, sweeping them away with need and want and everything they’d had between them. 

Drift tipped his hips up, and Perceptor could feel the heat of his interface hatch against his belly. He slid down, tearing his mouth from Drift’s, nipping at the interface hatch while his hands raked fierce lines down Drift’s ribstruts, causing the body to twist and arch, sinuous and aroused. 

The hatch opened, and his glossa circled the spike cover, almost demandingly, flicking against its irised closure until it yielded and Drift’s spike, white and red and slick, jutted out. Perceptor caught the spike in his mouth, even as it pressurized, his glossa finding the tender little spot just under the head.

Drift gasped, his body twitching, hands clawing along his own thighs.  He tried to say something—it sounded, vaguely, like Perceptor’s name, before subsiding in a series of helpless moans as Perceptor continued to work, his mouth sliding down and up the shaft, the glossa, always, inexorably, flicking against the head’s node.

Drift wouldn’t last long—Perceptor could feel it, all the suppressed desire boiling to the surface, and he thought, distantly, what this meant, how rarely Rodimus must have let him use his spike.

He would make up for that, starting now, starting with looking up at Drift, catching his gaze with his, mouth still encircling the spike, and giving a soft, vibrating hum as he bent to work again.

Drift’s body shuddered in release, the spike bursting hot fluid into Perceptor’s mouth as a sharp cry burst from Drift’s mouth, his optics distant and unseeing, rapt in bliss. 

He was beautiful like this, totally given in to the experience, totally given in to desire. He swallowed, in three, slow, languorous moves, feeling Drift judder against him before he slid up the shaft, one last time, in an almost tender farewell to the spike.

Drift’s hands clutched under his arms, hauling him upward, his body still shivering from the overload. “Didn’t have to,” Drift said.

“I wanted to.” It was different, what he did, compared to what Rodimus had made him do. Different in intent, different in focus. 

Drift squirmed against him, and he could feel the wet heat of the valve against his black pelvic armor. “Please,” Drift said.

Perceptor wasn’t one to resist: he unsheathed his spike, sliding it into the valve in a swift, but careful, move.  And they both shivered, for a moment, at the rightness of it: brought together, desire fitted to desire, want to want.

Perceptor braced a knee against the floor, and began moving, slow, deep thrusts that left them both groaning with desire.  He looked down, at Drift splayed beneath him, the red spaulders flattened against the ground, his optics aglow with want—wanting Perceptor, almost more than the physical release.

Perceptor wanted to growl, ‘Mine,’ make some claim, but he couldn’t. Because Drift wasn’t his—no mech owned another mech, and the last thing he wanted was to make Drift think he was nothing better than an owned thing, a possession. So he held his glossa, biting his lip as he thrust against Drift, the tempo rising, charge building between them.  Drift’s mouth was parted, panting with desire, his hands desperate and needy against Perceptor’s hips, urging him onward. 

He couldn’t say much for his own stamina, egged on by Drift’s need, and fired up by Drift’s own overload, the transfluid still tart and shimmering in his mouth, and he overloaded, with the hard release of one who’d fought it for as long as possible, crushed under his own sensornet.

Drift arched under him, mouth stretching in a soundless shape of lust, the valve clamping against his spike as though it never had any intention of letting him go.

“Mine,” Perceptor whispered. This, he would claim. This he would make his own: Drift, overwhelmed with pleasure, writhing and happy, beneath him. This was his. Not Drift, but Drift’s pleasure. 

Drift surged up, catching Perceptor’s neck, pulling him into a kiss that started ardent, demanding, and ebbed off to the most poignant sweetness.  “Next time,” Drift said, his voice staticky from the overload, “maybe we’ll even make it to the berth.”

Perceptor grinned, his mouth stretching into a last brush of a kiss. “It’s a hypothesis. It requires testing.”

A gentle huff of Drift’s laughter, vibrating the frame underneath him. “Extensive testing.”  He stroked his hands up Perceptor’s back, one flirting with the back of his scope. “I’m glad we got to, uh, do this.  Even though, well, this wasn’t, you know, I mean, I didn’t plan this.”

It was Perceptor’s turn to laugh. Drift had his moments were words were…not his friends. “I know. I’m glad,” he said, edging into a bit of curiosity, “you finally got a night off.”  Drift being here was proof that his venture had worked, at least a bit.

The smile turned a little wry. “Yeah, I don’t know what happened. I, uh, I asked if he, uh, needed me all he said was it was fun while it lasted and no hard feelings.”  He seemed confused.

“I’m sorry,” Perceptor said. Something close to a lie, as part of him exulted in the fact that he’d won, that Rodimus had ceded his control over Drift. But he would be sorry if it upset Drift. 

“Don’t be,” Drift said, pulling Perceptor’s shoulder close, to nuzzle at the sensitive lens of the scope. “I like this better.”

Me too, Perceptor thought, even as he shivered under the teasing little licks against his scope, feeling Drift, solid and real and happy—really happy—under him. 


End file.
